Graham Middleton remembers the furniture dealer Jack Frost

Resource Type: Audio | Posted on 2nd October 2014 by Jenny Porter

Graham talks about the credit system at the shop he lived above. He also recalls the many second-hand furniture dealers, particularly Jack Frost, who smoked a pipe and hired his dad to go around with a horse and cart collecting old furniture.

Interview Transcript

Graham: The shop â€“ she used to run a book, the lady, cause people had credit and they would come in and whether it was a pint of milk or a loaf they get it put on the book â€“ and she had shoe boxes under the counter full of these red, silver, or, like shot silk notebooks, you know when you move them they move with you. They were all individual peopleâ€™s names and it would go down in there, you know pint of milk etc., etc., and then they would come back on payday to pay the bill. And of course they would add it again, they were all a week in arrears almost with the wages, I would say she made quite a lot of money out of that.
There were a lot of second-hand furniture shops. There was one at the top of Chandos Street run by a man called, believe it or not, Jack Frost. And his daughter married my uncle and they emigrated to what was then Southern Rhodesia. And he was always smoking a pipe â€“ I can smell it now â€“ but he would clear houses. And there was a lot of what went on, he gave my dad a job to go with a handcart to houses where somebody had died. And he would go in, not necessarily people liked him, and he would look around and he might see one or two things worth a few Bob, but they would buy the whole lot. And they offered a couple of quid for the lot. My dad would go there with the handcart, collect it, and stuff that Mr. Frost wanted would be taken off and the rest would go to another dealer. There was another dealer on the corner of Juno Street and he would buy some furniture.

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Comments

By elizabeth Frost on 23rd February 2016

I am the daughter of Jack Frost, and remember graham very well as a little boy.
It’s true my father had a second hand shop in chatsworth street,one thing that stands out in my memory,was how often we had to stand to eat ourfood because the chairs would have been borrowed by neighbors hfor weddings and funerals.My father had the reputation of being ahard headed business man,but he was very expected by other dealers as well as the local police.It was a requirement of his licence that all goods he bought were re order in a book, that would be inspected by the police weekly.He had the reputation of having the best kept books in Liverpool.What people did not see where the buckets of coal, and bags of grocery’s that he would leave at old age pensioners doorsteps in times of need.

By Grace cremor on 8th January 2017

Myself and my family lived next to Mr frost I remember him well.we lived in 42 chatsworth street until we left in 1968 ,after Mr frost left my aunty Nellie Chapman moved into frosties as we new him,she had it as her home until she was rehoused,in 1967,the fun we had as kids finding old parts of bikes etc in the seller,we all new Mr frost bless him,,grace cremor

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Edge Hill Station is the oldest passenger railway station in the World. Some say when Stephenson's Rocket left Edge Hill for Manchester on the 15th September 1830 it marked the beginning of the modern world.